L'Engle: a primer for the adult
May. 27th, 2013 01:01 pmThis post is for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ollipop, who asked where to start with reading L'Engle.
...It depends!
For the remainder of this post, I'll use L'Engle's terms of kairos (the Murry/O'Keefe books) and chronos (the Austin books), and connection books (books that aren't focused on the O'Keefes or Austins, okay, I can't remember if this is exactly what she called them, whatever).
( Cut for length. )
Note that L'Engle was a Christian, if a radical one, and all her stories are told from a perspective of faith in a loving God (she doesn't beat you over the head with it, but it's definitely a clear influence of her worldview), and this is particularly true of the nonfiction and the Murry-kairos books. (The protagonist of Small Rain/Severed Wasp is not religious, nor are the O'Keefe family to my knowledge, or at least not exactly, so those would be good places to start if you'd rather not read from that worldview.)
In conclusion: all the nonfiction, Ring of Endless Light (you may want to read Arm of the Starfish and The Moon By Night first, and you definitely want to read House Like a Lotus after), and Small Rain/Severed Wasp.
And read all of Sheila O'Malley's writing on L'Engle. (Scroll down about halfway down the page to get to her book discussions.)
ollipop, who asked where to start with reading L'Engle....It depends!
For the remainder of this post, I'll use L'Engle's terms of kairos (the Murry/O'Keefe books) and chronos (the Austin books), and connection books (books that aren't focused on the O'Keefes or Austins, okay, I can't remember if this is exactly what she called them, whatever).
( Cut for length. )
Note that L'Engle was a Christian, if a radical one, and all her stories are told from a perspective of faith in a loving God (she doesn't beat you over the head with it, but it's definitely a clear influence of her worldview), and this is particularly true of the nonfiction and the Murry-kairos books. (The protagonist of Small Rain/Severed Wasp is not religious, nor are the O'Keefe family to my knowledge, or at least not exactly, so those would be good places to start if you'd rather not read from that worldview.)
In conclusion: all the nonfiction, Ring of Endless Light (you may want to read Arm of the Starfish and The Moon By Night first, and you definitely want to read House Like a Lotus after), and Small Rain/Severed Wasp.
And read all of Sheila O'Malley's writing on L'Engle. (Scroll down about halfway down the page to get to her book discussions.)
